Friday, October 19, 2012

In a challenging economy, leasing cellular telephone towers might
turn out to be a wonderful investment. Although The Global Futurist Blog
does not render tax, investment, accounting, financial or legal advice
to any of our readers, these structures are landscape fixtures which are
increasing in utility and value by the day. Sale-leaseback transactions
might carry some wonderful annuitized income as well as some offsetting
depreciation. Here's a snapshot:

You've probably seen plenty of cell towers
(in increasing numbers) along the highways and major roads as you've
traveled. You might've thought that they looked unattractive (or that
they emitted some sort of dangerous electromagnetic energy). You might have grinned inwardly as you thought that your cellular telephone reception would begin to improve, with greater clarity and fewer dropped calls - you might've sneaked a peek at your device to count the bars (or martini stirrers, as we cellularphiles [a Lingovation] like to call them).

Maybe
we were missing the most significant news of all about these
high-volume, signal sending, networked beasties -- the financial and leasing
aspects of use and ownership of these money mills! The article which
follows might prove enticing to those of us infused with the
entrepreneurial spirit.

Sounds to me to be a wonderful
investment. Despite the environmental and potential physiological
concerns associated with ambient electromagnetic energy given off by
these signal-bouncing beacons, they are increasing in number as demand
increases, and they are truly hard assets. This makes it indeed possible
to lease them -- even if you're a denizen of the private sector.

As there numbers grow, and they will, some genius is going to put together a geographically-diversified, mixed carrier portfolio of these behemoths, and sell interests, either to institutions, or to individuals, but with the portfolio under duly-licensed and expert management.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Some view barriers and obstacles to business entry as deterrents; as reasons for retreat. Others view these roadblocks as challenges to their innovative and entrepreneurial capability. This latter group of block-busting entrepreneurs are creating a market disruption which may not only help grow the entrepreneurial and small business sector (the greatest historically-proven economic and employment stimulus), but which might just help to displace stodgier, older companies which have lost their ability to innovate, to pivot and to adapt.

The article excerpt which follows (courtesy of The Harvard Business Review) illustrates this point and potentiality very artfully:

Part of the way in which industrialized nations with depressed economies and limited domestic opportunities can dig themselves from out of the doldrums is by better empowering smaller, entrepreneurial businesses to become more involved in exploring the global economy.

It is highly-likely that during the course of the next four years most of the smaller, more highly-adaptable entrepreneurial enterprises spawned in the now-overwhelmed and somewhat shell-shocked industrialized nations will be turning their efforts in the direction of internationalization, and will be looking toward emerging markets in emerging countries for an increasingly large portion of their revenues.

This is ironic, in that so many in these industrialized nations view joblessness as a function of outsourcing jobs to less-developed countries where labor is typically cheaper.

Viewed in the aggregate and over time, this effect is almost an economic osmosis, where employment and business opportunities on the one hand, and markets on the other, are moving toward a sort of equilibrium through increasingly efficient globalization. And smaller businesses, it would seem metaphorically, are better at penetrating barriers than their much larger, slower-moving counterparts -- those very same businesses which had grown dependent on monopolization and government largesse.

We are entering into some challenging but fascinating times for international economics and global commerce as international barriers are being hurdled at an accelerating rate.